


Hijacked

by my_odestiny



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/my_odestiny/pseuds/my_odestiny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finnick Odair has fled the Quarter Quell with Katniss Everdeen to join the Rebellion against the Capitol, and President Snow is determined to make sure that Annie Cresta pays the price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

     Katniss Everdeen let out a scream, and she let her arrow fly. The bolt of lighting followed the arrow up the cable, straight into the dome. The arena erupted in a flash of white light, then the screen went black. Annie stared at her television, waiting for the feed to return, but the seconds stretched on, and still there was nothing.

     “Finnick? Finnick?!” Annie called, as if the sound of her voice could bring his image back. She’d seen him knocked back in the blast—he could be injured, dead, and if he wasn’t already, the Capitol could surely make it so. Annie scrambled for a phone, fingers trembling as she dialed the District 4 escort. His line was busy. She dialed Finnick’s Capitol phone. No answer. Someone was banging on her door.

     “Annie!” he called, and she recognized the voice. She ran to open the door, and one of the other Victors, Muscida, hurried inside. “What’s going on?!” she asked him.

     But he grabbed her and started for the back door, “I don’t know, but we have to get out of here.” Questions tumbled from her lips as she staggered outside with him,

     “Where are we going? What’s happening to Finnick?”

     Muscida cut through the back of the Victor’s Village, eyes darting every which way, “I don’t know, Annie, we just have to-”

     A shot rang out, and Muscida dropped to the ground, fragments of his brain and skull spattering in every direction. Annie screamed as she crashed to her knees with him. She clutched to his shirt, crying out his name, but the life had already left his blood-clouded eyes.

     Peacekeepers descended on them. Annie tried to run, but they appeared from every side, grabbing her. She screamed, struggled desperately against them, but they were too strong, too many. They braced her by each arm, and one of them took the end of his gun a struck her across the temple. She cried out in pain, and he struck her again, and again, until blood ran down her face. Her screaming subsided, the pain turned to dizziness, and the last thing she saw was the ocean turning on its end before everything went black.


	2. Chapter 2

     Annie felt herself lurch across the floor, and she awoke with a start. Rows of white, armored boots surrounded her on every side. She started to sit up, and pain split through her skull, down her spine. The front of her blouse had been torn open, and blood stained her tattered skirt. The slightest movement of her legs felt like a stab wound deep inside of her. She began to tremble as she stared up at the faceless Peacekeepers who’d done this to her.

     “Where am I?” she demanded shakily.

     None of them answered her.

     Annie pulled the torn pieces of her dress over her bare skin. “I didn’t do anything,” she told them. “You can’t keep me here.”

     “Be quiet,” one of them ordered with a mechanical voice.

     But Annie’s heart only raced faster, “Let me go!”

     A Peacekeeper raised the butt of his gun, and she took a breath to scream when she lurched forward again. They were on an aircraft, and it was landing. The sound of the engines faded away, and a hatch opened before her. Annie stumbled to her feet, adrenaline overriding her pain as she bolted for the sunlight. But a dozen black-gloved hands grabbed her and wrenched her backwards. They pulled a bag over her head, then held her by each arm as they marched her down the ramp.

     The pain from Annie’s wounds made her dizzy, and her legs began to give way. The Peacekeepers continued to drag her forward. It would have been easier to carry her, but they forced her to walk, even when blood ran down her legs as her flesh tore anew. She let out a cry of pain, her bare feet scraping across the concrete. She stumbled blindly along with them, unable to place the strange sounds that echoed all around her, unsure if they were even real, or one of her hallucinations. She heard a door open before them, and a chorus of screams echoed around her.

     Annie dug her heels against the slick floor in vain. “Please, let me go!” she begged, her tears soaking the cloth around her face. She tried to cover her ears, but the Peacekeepers held her arms fast.

     “Annie?!” a familiar voice called her. In her confusion, it took her a moment to recognize it. Then it clicked, and Annie cried back with a jerk,

     “Johanna?!” The District 7 Victor had been Finnick’s ally during the Quell. She had been one of the last people in the arena with him. And now she was screaming at the top of her lungs.

     “What the hell is she doing here?!” Johanna shouted at the Peacekeepers. “She doesn’t have anything to do this!”

     But the soldiers ignored her, and Annie felt them lift her up and drop her onto a table. Steel restraints closed around her wrists and her ankles, and they ripped the bag from her face. She immediately searched for Johanna beneath the blinding light that flooded her eyes, but spots clouded her vision.

     But Johanna’s voice was still clear and shrill in her ears, “You sick bastards, what did you do to her?! Let her go!”

     “Johanna, where are we?” Annie called to her, unable to orient herself. The Peacekeepers had disappeared, she heard the clashing of iron bars as they left.

     “We’re in the Capitol,” Johanna told her, a strange tremor in her voice. “You shouldn’t be here!”

     “Where’s Finnick?!” Annie asked desperately as she shivered against the cold table.

     “I don’t know!” her words dissolved in her throat, and Johanna Mason began to cry. “I’m sorry, Annie! I’m sorry…”

     Fear sank deep into Annie’s gut. She’d never seen Johanna cry before, she almost didn’t think she was capable. And if tough, obstinate Johanna was already crying, what could the Capitol possibly have in store for the defenseless Annie Cresta?


	3. Chapter 3

     “Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to tell us, Miss Cresta?” President Snow asked as he circled the table on which Annie lay. 

     “No!” Annie sobbed. “I don’t know anything. Please!” If she had known anything, any secrets about this sudden rebel plot, she would have confessed them hours ago. She would have run shouting them through the streets if he’d told her to. Anything to make him shut off the monitors. But no matter how much she begged, how much she cried out for mercy, her head remained strapped in place within the contraption. 

     Monitors positioned inches from her face encompassed her field of vision, playing an endless loop of clips—her fellow tribute’s head being blown from his shoulders, her own body pinwheeling underwater as the arena flooded, Mags dying in the Quell, Finnick making love to a beautiful Capitol woman—each interspersed within a random assortment of the most violent, horrendous deaths in the history of the Games. It had played on and on for hours, and every time Annie thought the loop had restarted, every time she tried to numb herself to the images, there would be a new death, a new angle, another woman to keep her attention.

     But the worst was the sound. Annie could shut her eyes for as long as she pleased, but there was nothing she could do to escape the two speakers pressed against her ears. Bones snapping, flesh tearing, boils breaking out on Mag’s skin, children screaming, erotic moaning, all blended together, overlapping one another. The stuff of Annie’s nightmares, the things that constantly tormented her inside were now being projected outside of herself and fed back to her, re-distorted by her own panic until she could no longer differentiate between what was on the screen and what she was seeing in her mind. 

     Annie had pulled at her restraints until the skin ruptured from her wrists, to no avail. Since, they’d begun, her torturers had only stopped and let her sit up twice in order to keep from choking on her own vomit. But when she’d coughed up the last drop of bile, her torturers had hosed her down and begun again while she was still dripping and cold. Snow had been present the entire time, walking from her cell to the two adjoining her, where Peeta and Johanna were enduring similar torture. But Johanna refused to talk, and to Snow’s dismay, the already unconscious Peeta had known nothing. So, he’d returned to Annie only to receive the same answer he had before—that no one had breathed even a word to Annie about a rebellion. 

     “Interesting,” Snow mused. With a small, sleek remote, he turned the volume in Annie’s speakers down just enough so that she could hear him speak. “To think Finnick ran to save his own skin and left you behind without a second thought.” 

     A fresh flow of tears poured down Annie’s cheeks as she whimpered, “No…” 

     “Yes,” President Snow told her. “He did.” 

     “That’s a lie!” Johanna suddenly shouted from her cell, followed by a scream of pain. 

     Snow played along, “If it’s a lie, Miss Mason, then why is she here?”

     Johanna didn’t have an answer. Instead, she shouted back, “He tried to protect you, Annie!” Soon after, another cry erupted from her lips. 

    “He certainly promised he would,” Snow pressed another button on his remote, and Annie realized she was suddenly watching herself and Finnick on the monitors. 

     The footage was from her bedroom the morning of the Quell reaping, just before Finnick had left to prepare. He held her, kissed her one last time, and looked her in the eye as he swore, “No matter what happens today, I’m going to protect you.” 

     “But now you’re here,” Snow said as he quickly changed the feed back to the previous gory loop. “Because he’d rather hide than protect you. I suppose he didn’t love you after all.” 

     Annie could only sob, his words tearing at the fibers of her heart. 

     “You son of a bitch!” Johanna screamed, writhing against her restraints. “Leave her alone!” 

     Snow ignored her as he finally pulled the monitors from Annie’s face and wiped at her tears with his thumb, “There, there, Miss Cresta. Now you’ve got to look at the positive side of things. You’re single again, isn’t that exciting?” 

Annie trembled at his touch, watching him, waiting for his feigned kindness to turn to cruelty. 

     Sure enough, the President gave her a vile grin. “In fact,” he opened the door to her cell, “I have a few gentlemen here who were meaning to talk to you about that.” 

     And though she screamed as loudly as she could, though Johanna howled profanities and threats from across the room, neither of them could deter the troop of Peacekeepers that flooded into her cell.


	4. Chapter 4

     “Annie…Annie…” she could barely hear the voice through the hallucinations that plagued her senses. No matter how tightly she squeezed her eyes shut, no matter how hard she pressed her palms over her ears, she could still see everything, hear every nuanced sound that her torturers had inundated her with. And even though they’d left hours ago, unstrapped her from the table and left her curled up on the floor, the gory montage still played over and over in her head, as palpable as if they’d left the monitors running. 

     The voice persisted. It was a warm, gentle tone—like Finnick’s—and as she focused on it, the voice guided her out of her nightmares, helping her separate reality from nightmare until she was able to open her eyes. But, it wasn’t Finnick who appeared before her. Instead, she found herself staring at a blue-eyed boy. 

     “Annie? Annie Cresta?” he asked again as he realized he’d finally gotten her attention. “I’m Peeta. I’m Finnick’s friend.” 

     Peeta. The boy from District 12, the one that Katniss Everdeen had saved in last year’s Games, the one who turned right around and volunteered to go back into the Quell with her. He had been allies with Finnick, along with Katniss. But he was here, and they weren’t. 

     “Wh-where is he?” she asked him. 

     “I don’t know,” Peeta admitted. “But I’m sure he’s okay. I’m sure he’s on his way to come get you right now.” 

     His words brought no comfort to her. Finnick could be dead or dying or maimed for all they knew. Or maybe President Snow was right, maybe he’d run off to join the rebels and left her. But one thing she knew for sure—he wasn’t coming to rescue her. An exhausted sob escaped her lips as tears began to run down her cheeks once again. 

     “No, no, no,” Peeta quickly soothed. “It’s okay. Annie, it’s going to be okay.” He reached through the bars that separated their cells and held out his hand to her. 

     After a moment of hesitation, she took it. His palm was warm, his touch tender, and gradually the trembling in her fingers began to subside. “Are you hurt?” she asked him. Amidst her own torture, she vaguely remembered the sound of his screams before he’d passed out. She could see the bruises around his face, the split in his lip, but he managed to smile despite the pain it must have caused him, “I’m okay.” 

     “What about Johanna?” Annie sniffled. Peeta’s cell was situated between the two of them, and from across the room, Annie couldn’t tell if Johanna was unconscious or dead. 

     “She’s sleeping,” Peeta assured her. 

     Annie let out a sigh of relief before looking back to him, “What are we going to do?” 

     “…I don’t know,” he confessed. “But we’ll figure something out, or they will. Finnick and Katniss have got to be looking for us.” 

     Slowly, she nodded. She knew that he was trying to comfort her, but she could hear the sincerity in his voice, see the conviction in his eyes. He truly had hope, and she began to absorb it from his touch. 

     He gave her hand a gentle squeeze, “Why don’t you rest? If you have nightmares, I’ll be right here.” 

     It occurred to Annie then that she hadn’t slept since she’d been taken from District 4. “Thank you,” she breathed, finally allowing herself to succumb to her fatigue. She knew that as soon as she dozed off, her nightmares would return in full force, but she also knew that when she awoke, there’d be someone there to hold her hand, to draw her out. She knew that when she awoke, she’d have a friend in Peeta Mellark.


	5. Chapter 5

     She never saw their faces, only her own anguished reflection in the black sheen of their visors. They pinned her down with gloved hands, and they said nothing to her as they forced themselves on her again and again, until her flesh bruised and tore and blood stained her thighs. But the Peacekeepers were only ever in her cell for a handful of minutes at at time. Annie spent the rest of her days listening to the agony of those around her. 

     There was Johanna two cells away, who the Peacekeepers interrogated hour after hour to no avail. They doused her in buckets of ice water, then sent shocks through her body until her voice gave way from screaming. Then there were the Avoxes in the cells across the hall. They couldn’t give away any information even if they had it, even if they wanted to. But the Peacekeepers tortured them anyways, relishing the guttural, animalistic sounds they produced. Annie had no idea why they were here, except that Peeta’s face paled when he heard them, and that he must know them. Even so, just the sound of someone in so much pain for so long was enough to send Annie to the edge of her sanity.

     They tried to help each other cope. Peeta tried. He smiled for them, told them that any day they were going to be rescued. He told stories to pass the time, when the guards would allow it, all about his home in District 12, all about silly bakery mishaps or his childhood pinings for Katniss. He tried to get her and Johanna to share, and Annie could manage to recount a few sunny days back home, when she was with Finnick, when she felt safe, happy. Johanna hardly ever spoke—she refused to think about her past. But she always listened, and once or twice, Annie thought she saw a ghost of a smile on her face. 

     But then President Snow would return, fledged by a fresh crop of Peacekeepers, to torment them. This time, they threw open the door to Peeta’s cell and wrenched him out. 

     Annie gripped the bars of her own cell door as she watched them. “Where are you taking him?” she demanded with a quiver in her voice. 

     “He’s going to do another interview with Caeser,” President Snow explained as the Peacekeepers shoved Peeta forward. “Call for another ceasefire.” A smugness twinkled in his eyes. “That way District 13 won’t be expecting our bomb strike.” 

     “No!” the word erupted from both Annie and Peeta’s lips at the same time. 

     Snow chuckled as a wicked grin spread across his face, “You should be happy to hear it. Soon this war will be over, and you will all be put out of your misery.” With that, he turned away and followed the group of Peacekeepers that pulled Peeta down the hall. 

     Annie cried after them, begging, saying anything she could to try to change the President’s mind. Peeta was making his own protestations as he stumbled along with them, but Snow didn’t take interest in any of their words. Finally, the door at the end of the hallway shut behind them, and they disappeared. 

     “Johanna,” Annie could barely choke out her name as tears swelled in her eyes. “Johanna, what are we going to do?” 

     Johanna shook her head wearily, “There’s nothing we can do. It’s over. We lost.” 

     “You don’t think District 13 can survive the bombs?” Annie watched her, desperate for any sign of hope in her face. 

     Johanna only closed her bruised eyes and sighed, “It’s over, Annie. We lost.” 

     “But they’re going to die!” Annie sobbed. 

     “We’re all going to die,” Johanna muttered. “It doesn’t matter anymore.” 

 


	6. Chapter 6

     The doors at the end of the hall burst open without warning, and the Peacekeepers dragged a bloody and beaten Peeta back to his cell. 

     “What happened?!” Annie cried in horror, but the Peacekeepers ignored her as they slammed Peeta onto the metal table and locked him in place with iron restraints. He had been taken away only hours ago to do another peacemaking interview with Caeser—what could he have possibly done to incur such wrath? 

     President Snow rushed into the cell. Hair flung wildly about his face, and sweat dripped down his skin. Annie had never seen him so unhinged, and the enraged look in his eye sent a chill through the pit of her stomach.  

     “Hijack him!” Snow ordered over the chaos. The Peacekeepers pulled the same monitor rigging they had used to interrogate her over Peeta’s face. Then, long, glinting syringes emerged from a padded case. 

     “What is that?” Annie shouted at them. “What are you doing to him?” But a Peacekeeper slammed his baton into the bars of her cell until she backed away. “Don’t hurt him!” she pleaded as she watched the first needle disappear beneath his skin. Peeta cried out in pain as the liquid entered his bloodstream, and Annie could only watch as they injected him again and again, then as they turned on the monitors. 

     Annie had watched Peeta being tortured for weeks now. No matter how much they beat him, no matter how much they tried to scare him, he always tried to be brave, to withhold his cries and assure Annie and Johanna as much as possible. But the scream that erupted from his lips then was unlike anything that Annie had ever heard, more guttural than the tortured Avoxes, more terror-stricken than Annie waking from her own worst nightmares. 

     “Peeta!” Annie called to him, but with speakers pressed to his ears, he couldn’t hear anything but what Snow wanted him to. He thrashed against his restraints, and President Snow resumed his usual calm demeanor as he watched Peeta howl. 

     “Please stop,” Annie begged him, unable to mask the tears that ran down her cheeks.

     “Oh, don’t worry, Miss Cresta,” Snow turned his bloodthirsty eyes on her. “If Peeta is hijacked successfully, I can assure you that you will be next.” 

 _Hijacked._ It was the second time he’d used the word. “What does that mean?” Annie asked him shakily. 

     Snow listened for a moment to Peeta’s screams. The sound of pain seemed to energize him, and that wicked grin reappeared on his face as he told her, “It is my sincerest hope that you will find out.”


	7. Chapter 7

     Peeta had used his interview with Caesar to warn District 13 about the bombs. The words were out of his mouth before Snow could stop him, but the President was sure to make him pay for it afterwards. He called it Hijacking—rounds and rounds of injections, followed by hours beneath the monitors. Annie never knew exactly what Peeta was seeing, but she could hear him screaming Katniss’ name in terror, in rage. Snow was turning him against the one person left in the world that he loved, and he couldn’t wait to do the same to her. They were waiting to make sure that Peeta wouldn’t die from the trauma. In the meantime, just outside her cell, Snow had placed another case of syringes marked “Annie Cresta.” 

     She tried to talk to Peeta, to comfort him as much as she could. But the more drugs they forced into his veins, the more he retreated into himself, curled into the corner of his cell, struggling to even speak. Johanna had stopped speaking long ago, the electroshocks finally overwhelming her. Annie wasn’t sure if she was even alive. There was nothing Annie could do for either of them, except to call their names, desperate for any kind of response. But after weeks of torture, the prison hall had fallen silent. 

     Then, sirens screeched from the ceilings. Annie bolted upright with a scream as the lights flashed red with warning. 

     “What’s going on?!” she cried to Peeta, who seemed just as bewildered as she. 

     “I don’t know!” he called back, crawling towards the bars that separated them. Annie reached for his hand.

     The doors burst open at the ends of the halls, and black-armored Peacekeepers flooded into the room, their sleek, dark uniforms stark against the white prison walls. Black armor, what did black armor mean? Annie had never seen it before, but the look of it filled her with dread. She curled up against the bars as they wrenched open the door of her cell. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her palms over her ears. This was it—Snow had sent his blackened executioners to finish her off, and she could only pray that whatever they did to her, they would be quick. 

     But she felt Peeta grab her hand, heard him shouting her name. She looked up and found his wide blue eyes amidst the chaos. 

     “Annie, it’s okay,” he shouted over the sirens. “This is it, this is the rescue!” One of the soldiers had removed his helmet, and Peeta seemed to recognize him. 

     Still, Annie hardly had time to process what he’d said before two of the soldiers swept them each up in their arms and rushed them down the hall. She had no choice but to cling to the man who carried her, and when she looked over his shoulder, she could see two more carrying Peeta and Johanna’s limp body. The unmasked soldier led the team through the winding hallways, up flights of stairs, and out of the maze of the prison, onto a rooftop that overlooked the twinkling nighttime Capitol. A hovercraft awaited them, engines already fired for flight. The soldiers hurried onboard, and as the hatch shut behind them, Annie could just see a glimpse of them rising off the roof, into the air. 

     The soldier who’d carried her dumped Annie clumsily to the floor alongside Peeta, then hurried over to where the others were scrambling to save Johanna, to get her oxygen and fluids before it was too late. However, the unmasked soldier turned knelt down beside them, wrapped a blanket around Annie’s naked skin. 

     “Is this it?” Peeta asked him. “Are we safe now?” 

     He nodded, “As soon as we’re out of Capitol airspace, they won’t be able to trace us. It’s over.” 

     “Where are you taking us?” Annie’s voice quivered in her throat. She didn’t know this person. For all she knew, this could be a trick, a trap, something worse. 

     But the soldier looked at each of them as he spoke. “We’re going to District 13. Katniss and Finnick are there waiting for you, they’re safe. You’re all safe now.” 

     “Gale…” Peeta spoke the soldier’s name, but it was the only word that left his lips before he collapsed into a sob, his body trembling as the relief overwhelmed him. 

     Gale wrapped him in another blanket and gave his shoulder a squeeze. “It’s going to be okay,” he muttered. “It’s going to be okay.” 

     But Annie couldn’t believe him, not just yet, not until she could see Finnick for herself.


	8. Chapter 8

     After hours of flying, they finally touched down in District 13. Gale and the other soldiers walked their reclaimed captives into the hanger where a team of white-coated doctors surged towards them with stretchers and IV stands. Half of them wheeled Johanna away, shouting codes as they ran. The others shoved Peeta and Annie into wheelchairs, asking an unending stream of questions as they rolled them through the hanger and into a dark, narrow hallway. 

     “Where’s Finnick? _Where’s Finnick?_ ” Annie pleaded for an answer, but again and again they brushed her question away as they placed her in a cramped hospital room. One of the male nurses practically picked her up and set her on the bed as the others began sticking her with needles and tubes and wires. All around her was shouting, beeping, jostling, probing—she found herself gasping for air, and the nurses strapped an oxygen mask over her face. Annie pulled against it, and they scolded her. One of the nurses ripped away the blanket that covered her naked skin, leaving her exposed to the men who still rushed in and out of the room. 

     “Wait, stop!” Annie grasped for it back, but another nurse grabbed her arm. Annie pulled against her, and the pitch in her voice rose with her panic as she screamed at them, “Let me go!” 

     But men and women rushed forward to pin her down. She kicked her weak, bloodied legs at them in vain, and they shouted codes at each other just as they had for Johanna. Velcro restraints emerged from the sides of the bed, and Annie could only scream in protest as she watched them close the first strap across her shoulders. 

     Another nurse emerged from the hallway, shouting, “Johanna Mason, Code Blue.” Without a word, all the nurses turned and rushed out of the room. Annie watched them go, struggling to regain her breath. She had to get out. She’d found herself in another prison, just as she’d feared. The nurses only managed to secure one restraint before they left, and she was able to reach up and rip it apart. She sat up and pulled the wires and needles from her arms before stumbling out of bed. A bout of dizziness struck her, and she sank to her knees. But she couldn’t afford to lose consciousness, not when the nurses would be back any moment. Annie pulled herself to her feet and wrapped the sheet from the bed around herself. Nurses and doctors were rushing through the hall just outside her door, towards Johanna’s Code Blue. Annie watched and waited for the moment when all backs were turned, then slipped from her room and down the other end of the hall. 

     Corner after corner, Annie felt as if she was turning through the same hallway with the same empty rooms. Voices echoed in her ears, and she had no way of knowing which ones were real and which ones were imagined. She was too frightened, too hurried to sort through them all, but whenever she heard them ahead of her, she turned away and started in another direction. Until she heard a snatch of Finnick’s voice from the next hall. Annie froze for a moment, listening. There were two voices—the first belonged to a girl, but the other’s was unmistakably Finnick’s, if it was real. If it wasn’t a desperate hallucination, a trap to lure her back to the hospital, or even some cruel form of torture, like the jabberjays from the Quarter Quell. Annie held her breath as she glanced around the corner and caught sight of Katniss Everdeen standing next to none other than the living, breathing Finnick Odair. 

     “Finnick!” the word burst from Annie’s throat raw and shrieking as she ran towards him, stumbling over the ends of her sheet, her weakened knees nearly giving way. But nothing would stop her now. 

     Finnick’s eyes widened for only an instant before he started towards her, shouting her name. Annie collided into him, and neither of them cared when they stumbled backwards against the wall. She locked her arms around him, and she felt his own arms encircle her, felt his hot tears on her shoulder. He was here, he was safe, he was sobbing. 

     “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” he sputtered over and over as he held her, his face buried in her shoulder. 

     Annie tried to respond, but she couldn’t even form words as the anguish and the terror and the helplessness of the past weeks overwhelmed her all at once. Too much had happened since they’d been separated—his reaping, the Quarter Quell, Mags’ death, his disappearance, her capture, and all that had happened since to her and Johanna and Peeta. 

 _Peeta_. 

     Annie looked back to the hallway to find that Katniss Everdeen had disappeared. Annie’s voice trembled as she asked, “Where did she go?” 

     Finnick blinked at her in confusion, “I don’t know, but-”

     Before he could stop her, Annie turned and raced back in the direction she’d come, reweaving through the maze of hallways towards the hospital wing. 

     Finnick hurried after her, shouting, “Annie? Annie, what is it?” 

     “We can’t let Peeta see her!” she cried as she ran.

     They reached Peeta’s room just in time to see his hands clenched around Katniss’ throat. Annie could only scream. With lightning reflexes, a rebel soldier surged forward and struck Peeta down. He and Katniss each collapsed to the ground, limp. 

     Finnick and Annie rushed towards Katniss, her lips blue, a purple ring already forming around her neck. 

     “No, don’t move her!” the soldier snapped as he shoved them away. 

     Annie turned and started for Peeta, but Finnick pulled her away. Doctors and soldiers poured into the room. They rolled him onto his stomach and handcuffed him, shooting tranquilizers into his veins. 

     “It’s not his fault!” Annie cried over the chaos. “He didn’t mean to!” 

     “What happened to him?” Finnick asked her, and suddenly everyone in the room turned to her for an explanation. 

     “He was hijacked,” she stammered as she struggled to catch her breath. 

     “What is that? What does that mean? What did they do?” 

     Dozens of questions flew at her at once, but as she watched the soldiers drag Peeta’s bound body from the room, the same words spilled from her lips over and over, “They were going to do me next, they were going to do me next…” Annie’s knees finally gave way, and she sank into Finnick’s chest, soaking the front of his shirt with tears. 

     The nurses pushed them from the room. Finnick picked Annie up into his arms and carried her down the hall, muttering in her ear again and again, 

     “It’s going to be okay.” 

     But his words couldn’t stop the fit of sobs that racked her body as she clung to him, because she knew that no matter what they did to try to cure Peeta or what they did to try to make her forget, it was never going to be okay.


End file.
